Millions of Americans loved Ulysses S Grant, but, as so often with love, the relationship can be hard to understand from the outside.

Grant did not woo the public.

A rumpled man, he seemed shorter than he was. When he opened his mouth, cigars and whiskey went in, but few words came out. His critics have disagreed over whether he should be condemned primarily as a brute of a general or a dupe of a president.

To those who adored him, he looked rather different. He and Lincoln saved the Union (The American government) in the Civil War, but only Grant lived to receive the nation's thanks. And he won without ego.

The newspaperman Charles A Dana called Grant "the most honest man I ever knew, with a temper that nothing could disturb".

But one man did disturb that temper.

Text: TJ Stiles

Copyright: The New York Times News Service (via Business Standard)

Image: Ulysses Grant, the 18th President of the United States (from 1869 to 1877).

Wikimedia Commons